Industrial Design Consultancy LTD (IDC)

IDC Designs World’s First Intelligent Personal ECG Heart Monitor

Thousands of people potentially at risk from heart disease are set to benefit from the world’s first personal ECG (Electrocardiogram) heart monitor from Medick Healthcare. Designed for consumers by the award-winning product design and innovation consultancy, Industrial Design Consultancy Ltd (IDC), the portable Medick Heart Monitor (MHM 100) has been carefully produced for an increasingly technology-savvy and health aware mature generation.

The possibility of seeing one’s own heart rhythm has previously been consigned to the experts, but the design of the MHM 100 introduces a remote way of recording ECG data without stepping foot inside a hospital. By combining the conventional techniques found in ECG monitors with neural network technology, patterns and trends can be identified from millions of heartbeats. Users can view these heart patterns on the LCD screen integrated within the MHM 100, quickly and easily.

The product is aimed at a broad range of consumers, primarily in the 50+ age range. Yet with some 230,000 people losing their lives to cardiovascular disease every year, the product will also be used by a younger audience too.

As the MHM 100 requires the user to wear the portable unit, IDC was tasked with creating a design that would be discrete, comfortable, easy to view and simple to use, whilst still appealing to a consumer audience of a wide age range and technical awareness.

Kay Patton, managing director of Medick Healthcare, explained, “In many cases, this product will be life-changing and potentially life-saving so when it came to the design stage, it was absolutely critical to get it right. We needed a robust design that would be ergonomically and aesthetically appealing to a generally computer literate audience, but with the emphasis on simplicity and ease of use.”

Jon Tenner of Execulence suggested IDC as the ideal partner for Medick, “IDC seemed to offer an unusual combination in its ‘on-tap’ resources and facilities. They could cut timescales with designers, engineers and project managers on hand, without cutting corners.”

The MHM 100 was turned around and manufactured within a six month period. With the necessary resources under one roof, IDC’s engineers worked closely with its product designers to project manage the MHM 100’s development inside the challenging timescale. IDC project managers oversaw the manufacture process from start to finish, from supporting the client in selecting the best plastics to checking the moulds in Taiwan.

Leading physician Professor Brian Glenville is just one endorser of the product, “This is a real breakthrough for the public and doctors alike…The reports and readouts produced by the MHM 100 offer a similar level of depth and insight to professional devices. Anyone taking a report from this device to their GP can do so confident in the knowledge that it provides all of the key indicators a Doctor would expect to see on an ECG.”

THE MEDICK MHM 100 PORTABLE HEART MONITOR WILL BE ON SHOW AT COMPAMED 2007: HALL 8B, STAND M12 (14-16 NOVEMBER).

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